Who Do I Think I Am??

This one's about the care.

THE PROMPT: "My thoughts on caring for a loved one in poor health." -from Happy May 2024!

Good evening everyone. I'm not gonna lie...this is uncomfortable for me. I wrote an entire entry this morning and deleted it because it wasn't appropriate.

My experiences in this kind of situation are limited basically to all of the people on WDC who are living this scenario right now. And the way my family is...I won't be in it for a long time. Too long for me to think about, anyway.

Truth is, I'm a selfish bastard. I won't change the oil in the car by myself, let alone think of trying to take care of someone who's sick. There are people out there who get paid plenty to do those kinds of things, and do them a lot better than I would. Shit, that's why I stopped cutting my own hair years ago.

But seriously, deep down, I can't watch people suffer. It breaks my heart. I hate hospitals, and I'm not Superman. If I can't fix it, someone else can. And if someone else can't, well, I can't describe that scene. I can't be there. I can't see it. My memories aren't going to be fixed on what a person looks like as they're dying; I'm going to remember them as they were when they were living.

When I was 14 I had an aunt that was diagnosed with cancer. Brain cancer. Every summer, she'd fly me and my brother down to Connecticut for a week, where she'd treat us like kings. She spoiled us rotten, probably because we didn't have anything. But not that summer. When she came home for Christmas that year, she was in remission, but the toll was taken. She'd lost so much weight, and the wig didn't look right.

The next year, cancer had come back. Real bad. I was 15 and just started my first job, and my family was basically going to Connecticut to say goodbye. I wasn't going to ask for the time off from work, being the new kid. I stayed home. But really, I didn't want to confront it. I was scared. I was losing one of the most favorite people in my life. I didn't show it on the outside, but inside, I was devastated. I didn't want to see some skinny, depleted woman with an infected skull and have that be my last memory. I wanted to remember her for all of the fun things we did.

And that's how I've always been. My family is, for lack of a better way of saying it, now non-existant. Most of my siblings won't speak to me because I didn't see my dad in the hospital when he tried to kill himself. There's way too much to that story to get into now, but I was working 70 hours a week, and he was childish. He had problems and wasn't taking care of himself. If it was that easy to drop everything to see him, I would've...and my half-brother did, but my half-sister didn't. Yet as soon as he got out of the hospital he was asking me for money. Christ, I really don't wanna get into it. The whole thought of the topic is just uncomfortable.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

They were my first concert, thanks to my now-deceased aunt.

VITAL STATS:

Enjoyed a nice barbecue with some old friends today. But if I never hear Madonna again, I'll be ok.

That is all for tonight. Tomorrow's Memorial Day, so have fun, be safe, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!